This page keeps the memory of 58 people from Borujerd; women and men from this city in Lorestan whose names are recorded in our list with a source. The oldest date in this list is 17 Dey 1389 and the most recent 3 Esfand 1404. In this span of several years, Borujerd has had families who lost their loved one at the gallows and families whose child was shot dead in the streets of this same city. Every name you read below is a human being with a home, work and people who are still waiting for them.
What the list for Borujerd shows
Of these 58 people, 43 were executed and 15 were killed in protests. Among them there is at least one adolescent under 18, and the sources have clearly written of 5 people that they were women. The lowest age recorded in this list is 17 years and the highest 45; the median of the ages is 34 years, that is, most of these people were taken in the middle of their lives, in the years when they were the breadwinners of their households.
The year 1404 is the heaviest year of this list for Borujerd: 31 names belong to this one year. After it come the years 1398, 1399 and 1401 with 6 names each, the year 1396 with 3 names, the years 1389 and 1402 with 2 names each and the years 1400 and 1403 with one name each. The day 18 Dey 1404 with 5 killed is the bitterest day of this list for Borujerd. Two other days also have two names each: 6 Aban 1401 and 12 Aban 1404. And the two names with which the list begins both go back to 17 Dey 1389.
Mosayeb Nezami and Ariana Arjmandi
Mosayeb Nezami was 32 years old and lost his life on 18 Dey 1404 in Borujerd. He was a farmer and worker and, according to the sources, “despite his education, had not agreed to work in governmental and state institutions.” One of the sources writes: “Mosayeb lived with his elderly mother and his sister.” And the burden of their livelihood was on his shoulders. Another source recalls that he had lost his father at the age of ten and became the breadwinner of the family from that time. Those around him describe him as a “noble, aware and family-loving” young man. This sentence of his remains: “If I am killed, do not betray my blood.” According to the sources, after being wounded he was taken to hospital and there “was killed with a coup de grâce to his heart”; his body was found with hospital equipment still attached to it. His brother said beside the grave: “I gave my brother as a gift to Iran.”
Ariana Arjmandi was 23 years old, and she too was killed on the same day, 18 Dey 1404, in Borujerd. The sources remember her like this: “Ariana worked in a café.” And: “She loved reading books.” One of the reports introduces her as a psychology student. According to the sources, she “was killed on Takhti Street in Borujerd” by a shot to her heart from close range. Her family was put under pressure to give a different account of her death, and according to information received by Iran International, “the burial was carried out at night within one hour in the presence of security agents.”
This list is not complete
We must say it clearly: these 58 names are not all of the victims from Borujerd. The real number is higher, and many names have never been published; we add only a name for which we have found a source. The sources of this page come mostly from the Iran Human Rights Society with 21 cases, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with 20 cases, HRANA with 16 cases, Iran International with 11 cases and HRANA / Human Rights Activists in Iran with 9 cases, followed by iranhrs.org, Iran International, Persian Wikipedia, IranWire and iranintl.com. For every name there is at least one source, but some records rest on only one source and may contain errors in details such as age or date. We have a description of life for only two of these 58 people; the rest are still only a name and a date.
If you knew one of these people from Borujerd, if you were their neighbour, classmate, colleague or relative, we ask you to send us a memory, a photo or a correction so that this page becomes more complete and more accurate and every name finds a face again.